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Now there stood by the Cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene.

When the young Roman guard asked them to keep back from the area she noticed that he was little more than a boy. The thought occurred to her that he must feel vulnerable at such moments as this. Around them milled a crowd, among them friends and family of the condemned, some half crazed with grief. If the prisoner was political there was the possibility of a rescue attempt, especially in the early stages of the crucifixion process.

She had arrived in Bethany too late to meet him before he had left for the city with his followers. She felt a passing twinge of resentment but she put it aside. By this time she had become used to being second to the demands of what he regarded as his ministry. As she tried to get some rest she had heard the visitors coming and going in the house, but she knew she was being allowed to rest because there was no good news to tell her.

Very late at night they woke her to let her know that he had been taken. As the young man told her of the impending trial, she knew that he was deliberately refraining from telling her of the possibility of execution. To her own surprise she found herself comforting him. When he asked her what she wished to do when the time came she said calmly that she wished to go to wherever her son would be. Again she tried to get some sleep.

In the early morning she left with her sister and the young woman from Magdale whom she barely knew. As she walked the last few hundred yards towards the area where the crosses stood in the ground, they seemed to grow in height. When she was close enough to see features she forced herself to look. She was glad of an arm supporting her.

At first a wild hope grasped her that it was not her son at all. The body was revealed in total degradation and defilement. She found herself thinking that it was no worse than countless others had suffered. Like most people she had always avoided any acquaintance with the obscene process of crucifixion.

As the young Roman guard ordered them to keep their distance, they shuffled back some yards. She looked across the filthy ground between them and the crosses. It occurred to her that all her life she had been distanced from her son. Even when she and Joseph had taken him as child to the temple she had had to look across a barrier as the priest took the baby and later returned him. Almost always it was across barriers and walls and chasms and crowds that their relationship had been conducted and their elusive love communicated. Of one thing she was certain, that he had loved her. Even if they had not often spoken it, she knew it to be real and lasting.

Someone told them how long it had been since the execution had begun. It now looked as if the end was not far off. By now the front of the crowd had inched forward again. She was aware with mingled terror and joy that he had opened his eyes and seemed to have seen them. She could see his lips moving, trying to form some word. Careless now of any restraint she moved forward to try to catch the sound.

When the whispered croaking sank to silence she moved back. In that moment, by the whispered statement of her dying son, this young man who had joined them and now stood beside her, had now become her son and she his mother. This evidence of her own son’s concern for her, even in his extreme agony, was for her a mingling of pain and appreciation.

With the help of her sister and of the young woman from Magdala who had come with them, she began to move away. She never heard the terrible cry of desolation that took all but his last breath.

An hour or so later a Roman lance pierced his side. If she had seen it she might have recalled the old man Simeon tenderly returning her newborn son to her arms in the temple all those years ago. She might have remembered his looking at her intently as he spoke very quietly. “One day” he had said, “a sword will piece your heart”.

One day…To a new young mother it had sounded so far in the future, and anyweay she had had no idea what the old man meant.

As they came down the hill she would have fallen on the treacherous path, had not her sister and the young woman of Magdala supported her.

Scripture for reflection: The Book of Esther

We are surrounded by dazzling power. The Persian empire is at its height, one hundred and twenty seven provinces from Ethiopia to India. At the centre of power is Ahasuerus, king in his capital at Susa.

The empire is celebrating a royal marriage. The emperor has chosen a bride. Esther, niece of a prominent Jewish leader named Mordecai, has been elevated to a position of immense influence.

Precisely at this moment Esther’s life becomes complicated by a threat to the Jewish community. A dangerous and powerful member of the court named Haman is determined to institute a pogrom that will have tragic consequences. To read Haman’s words to the king is to hear the chilling patterns of anti-Semitism down the centuries.

“There are a certain people scattered and separated in all the provinces of your kingdom. Their laws are different from those of every other people. They do not keep the king’s laws, so it is not appropriate for the king to tolerate them”. Only after this careful and nuanced statement does Haman lay bare his real intention in plain and brutal language. “If it please the king,” he continues, “let a decree be issued for their destruction”.

The king agrees, opening the way to the deaths of tens of thousands of people.

Mordecai desperately contacts his niece. Only she can get the king to rescind his decree. The request deeply distresses her. She has not revealed to the king that she is Jewish. Now she must choose between losing everything or remain silent while her people are destroyed.

Through a messenger Esther contacts her uncle. He responds by sending her the documents that Haman has written that condemn all Jews to death. Esther responds. Her reply is full of anxiety and helplessness. She cannot go to the king unless he summons her. Again Mordecai replies. His note is stern and adamant. Its language is chillingly modern, echoing many voices that spoke before and during Hitler’s holocaust.

“Do not think that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. For if you keep silence at such a time as this, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another quarter, but you and your father’s family will perish”. Then, with unerring precision Mordechai pinpoints the heart of the matter for Esther. “Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this”.

This magnificent message with its implied reference to Esther’s own integrity has the desired effect. Esther agrees to go to the king. She makes it clear that she has no illusions about the possible consequences. “I will go to the king”, she writes to her uncle, “even though it is against the law. If I perish, I perish.”

Three days later Esther makes her move. Dressing in the grandeur of her royal robes, she waits in a gallery where the king is likely to see her. Her plan succeeds. Esther does not bring up the subject of the pogrom at this point. Instead she asks that the king invite Haman to a banquet that is being planned. . During the banquet the king asks Esther the nature of her request. Without mentioning the king’s own decree she offers evidence for Haman’s hatred and treachery as the real reason for the threat to her people.

Hastily the king rescinds his decree, sending messages across the empire. Haman is summarily executed. Esther’s uncle Mordechai is given the royal signet ring that makes him a powerful figure at court.

In this long ago political struggle, scripture gives us a glimpse of a people struggling to survive. It also introduces us to a courageous and resourceful young woman who placed duty above personal gain, even above personal survival.

Herbert O’Driscoll